Here is Mel Lewis trading fours on Stoppin’ at the Savoy, from Bob Brookmeyer’s album The Blues Hot and Cold. These are pretty interesting. Lewis isn’t anybody’s idea of a chops guy, but he’s not […]
Category: jazz
Q & A: Turned around
I received this question in the comments a while ago: I wanted to ask you a quick question about listening to (not playing) up tempos. I find that sometimes my brain shifts the hi-hat 2&4 […]
Ten tunes: oxygen
What a lot of people usedto learn this tune. A professional drummer friend wanted to get my take on ten essential tunes to learn, for drummers playing jazz. It’s a hard question, because an actual […]
Transcription: Art Blakey – The Egyptian
Here’s a drum intro… hey, this could go in my Book of Intros, which HAHAHAHA is still languishing a few hours of work away from completion… a drum intro, played by Art Blakey on The […]
Groove o’ the day: Like Sonny – alternate version
An Afro 6 feel recorded in 1959 by Lex Humphries on an alternate version of Like Sonny, from the John Coltrane Alternate Takes compilation. The master version of the tune was released on the album […]
Soloing on a form
don’t let this happen to you “My idea of a drum solo is that you play like you sing. It comes from different things you listen to. And the beauty is always in the simple […]
Daily best music in the world: Gene Krupa
Gene Krupa playing with a quartet in the 1950s. This has a nice vibe, and doesn’t get ridiculous about showcasing Krupa. His accompaniment on the tenor solo on Little White Lies (starting at 19:06) is […]
Reed triplet method with RH accents
Writing yesterday’s piece I realized I’ve never posted a really satisfactory explanation of the RH accent triplet solo method— a very useful way of practicing Progressive Steps to Syncopation, which I’ve relied on a lot […]
Page o’ coordination: the with interruptions – 04
I don’t like giving you pages with too many patterns on them. When I do that, the idea is that you move through the patterns quickly, and cover them all in one unit of practice— […]
Page o’ coordination: That with interruptions – 03
I like this little series. Nothing radically innovative, but a slightly different way of thinking about normal jazz comping vocabulary, courtesy of John Riley. These pages aren’t ordered for total beginners— if I were teaching […]